Granma International On line
Havana, Cuba. Year 8 - Wednesday, March 19, 2003.
A war unleashed on the ruins of diplomacy
BY MICHEL PORCHERON -Special for Granma International
U.S. bombardments of Iraq, announced months ago by the lobby of hawks
in the White House and the Pentagon, have led to serious "collateral
damage" even before they have been initiated. Washington has never
before declared war after uselessly working on such long statements in
New York and despite opposition to the military option from a
clear Security Council majority.
U.S. war hysteria has swept aside NATO and European Union unity, both
passing through an area of turbulence whose imprint will remain
engraved on the latter's short history. War on Iraq will be waged on
the ruins of diplomacy, read The New York Times on March 18. French
daily Le Monde ran an editorial entitled "U.S. failure", pointing out:
"The entry into a war on Iraq by the United States and Britain, without
a UN mandate and in a completely unilateral fashion, constitutes a
tremendous failure."
In order to bring down the government of a small regional power
weakened by the first Gulf war and its subsequent blockading and
militarily isolation, the U.S. superpower - with unequalled firepower -
has needed long months of sophisticated military preparations,
diplomatic negotiations so interminable as to be purely formal, plus
various ultimatums and blind obstinacy that has lead it to inflict
a serious blow on the United Nations and the Security Council.
Worse still, the same U.S. diplomacy has foundered in an unprecedented
fiasco and, for several weeks now, the world has witnessed the slow
agony of the famous second Anglo-U.S. resolution, which however, was
seen to be decisive as Washington's only means of obtaining the
diplomatic pretext needed to unleash a previously decided military
operation. Libération wrote of "gun-boat diplomacy". "It's not just
the UN that comes out looking badly, as they are saying in Washington,
but also U.S. political prestige and maybe even its moral authority,"
adds Le Monde. But the White House has committed a grave error in
estimating the resistance capacity of the other side - consisting of
those nations seeking a peaceful solution in Iraq - led by France,
which could not have come so far without the active aid of Germany,
Russia and China.
Without discussion and with increasingly false pretexts incapable of
convincing half the U.S. population of the need for this war, George W.
Bush ended up by having recourse returned on the night of March 17 by
having recourse returned to a speech that he wanted to sound
dramatic: Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48
hours. If not, war will "commence at a time of our choosing."
The whole world understood that the delay would be determined only by
the time needed to evacuate Western officials in Baghdad.
What follows has nothing to do with war-games. As in all respected
video games, there can be very little margin for error. The deluge of
bombs over Baghdad, death falling from the skies on the Iraqis, not
knowing when to activate ground troops surrounding the last redoubt of
Saddam Hussein. In the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's
team is hoping for a short war. Laurent Murawiec, a military
expert from the ultra-conservative Hudson Institute and a
Frenchman close to the U.S. hawks, predicted a duration of "more
or less two weeks," according to the March 18 edition of Libération.
Murawiec affirms that "Iraq's military capacities are half what they
were in 1991, whilst U.S. military power is far superior. Today, most
U.S. bombs are "smart" (high precision) ones, unlike 12 years ago."
The Pentagon is also counting on a large number of deserters from the
enemy ranks.
A speedy war but one with unpredictable long-term consequences. Even
before the first shot has been fired, the horizon was clouded by UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government has been revealing its
cracks. The House of Commons has been called on to save appearances. On
the other side of the English Channel, there was immediate and positive
approval of Jacques Chirac's diplomacy. France did not cede its
position in the face of George W. Bush's latest ultimatum. "Only the
Security Council is authorized to legitimize the use of force,"
reminded the French president.
A communiqué from the Elysée Palace released on Tuesday morning (March
18) details that the ultimatum was "aimed at Iraq without consulting
the UN. This unilateral decision is against the wishes of the Security
Council and the international community," continued France,
warning Washington over the temptation to "separate itself from
UN legitimacy: placing force above the law would be charged with a
heavy responsibility."
Those backing the French position have talked of "violating" the UN,
which is flattered by Washington when its attitude favors U.S.
interests, and undervalued when it legitimately resists the U.S. will.
"We should not forget that the world has become unipolar and the United
States is against all those who, in one way or another, show themselves
in favor of developing multilateralism," commented a
Libération editorial. It added: "U.S. neo-conservative
intellectuals encouraging George W. Bush want to free the United
States from the obstacle that the UN represents to "U.S. hegemony."
This hegemonism, Baby Bush-style, has become clearly apparent following
September 11; the date that so cruelly marked the country, but when it
also reinforced its arrogance and that of its administration. But these
events would clog up its internal mechanism to the point of making it
vulnerable. So much so that historians such as Emmanuel Todd affirm
that the U.S. attitude towards Iraq was, in reality, "a confession of
weakness." When Bush, following the advice of "moderate" Colin Powell,
launched his first ultimatum on September 12, 2002, he convinced
himself that he would swiftly obtain what, in spite of everything, he
did not have at that point: "international legitimacy." What he didn't
know, because he couldn't see it, was that the UN would put up
resistance and that many of his habitual allies would not follow him.
The warning bells for U.S. diplomacy really began to ring out on
January 20 when French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin -
comprehending that war was the only option for Washington - made a
statement that surprised many by announcing: "nothing justifies a war
against Iraq", adding that France would assume its responsibilities in
opposing any conflict. According to a special correspondent
from Libération, "the statement was a bombshell for Powell's aides, who
were said to feel personally "offended" by Villepin's position." Days
later, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder would confirm the
strengthening of the French position, thus prompting Donald Rumsfeld's
comments on "Old Europe."
At that point, W. Bush granted Tony Blair the favor of continuing, in
spite of everything, down the Security Council route. Bush's need for
international legitimacy was so great that he believed it was possible
to secure majority support for a second resolution. Blair guaranteed
that it was possible and - as they say - the rest is history¼. But it
wasn't until March 17 that the second resolution was definitively
buried by those who had themselves proposed it. Nobody deserted Chirac,
starting with Putin.
Quite the reverse, on February 14 Villepin was applauded before the
Security Council; an event that has never before taken place; in fact
it is prohibited. Washington also failed in its numerous attempts to
pressurize the so-called U6 (the undecided six) non-permanent members
of the Security Council.
The final U.S. fraud was aimed at playing down the importance of the
failure of the second Anglo-U.S resolution: the vote would have been a
tight one, according to John Negroponte, U.S. ambassador to the UN, on
March 17. Special correspondents from the world's press then saw French
ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière take the stand to clarify that, in
fact, "11 of the 15 members have rejected the use of force".
It is effectively a redefinition of the role of the United States in
the world arena today, prompting an international expert to state that
Washington will not be able to apply its "Iraqi script" in another part
of the world.
Professor of International Relations at Columbia University, New York,
Edward Luck defines this as the first West-West conflict of the post-
cold war era. He commented that it has set a highly disturbing
precedent that would appear to be the first in a series of similar
policy decisions aimed at defining the extent of U.S. might and the
degree of tolerance of it by the other nations in the face of
this exception. He added that Iraq was not the main motive for this
crisis and it is U.S-European relations and relations within Europe
itself that are being called into question.
On the morning of Tuesday 18, the UN weapons inspectors left Baghdad
for Cyprus. The head of the White House claimed that the ruthless
dictator would soon be gone, adding that the United States was ready to
assume its responsibilities. On Sunday 16, a veritable blitzkrieg
reunion had taken place in a U.S. military base in the Azores
(Portugal) between Bush, Blair and Aznar. A "summit" that history will
not recall. The dice were loaded. No one could be deceived. What
was missing from the meeting was what the partisans of peace possessed:
clarity and sincerity.